


Shifting Desires

by Vipersweb (Rhianona)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 20:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianona/pseuds/Vipersweb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the summer after the Triwizard Tournament, Fleur moved to England and found friendship and something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shifting Desires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [t_quibbler](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=t_quibbler).



> Written for the third round of Femmefest, a HP femslash ficathon.

“It is a gift you have, but also, I think, a curse,” Fleur observed as she watched her new friend cycle through different types of women in front of a mirror. The French beauty leaned against the door jamb, arms crossed against her stomach and simply watched with an almost morbid fascination as Nymphadora merely smirked and continued her shifting. She wore a loose robe that preserved her modesty with each of the various body shapes.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

Fleur couldn’t be certain, but she thought she could distinguish a hint of genuine curiosity from the other woman. She returned the question with a delicate, Gallic shrug and a sardonic smile that bespoke of experience in having others categorizing a magical talent as a gift and a benefit whilst ignoring the more negative aspects of it.

“It is similar to the allure, non?” she said instead. “My grandmother’s gifts are awake in me, not as strong as a full-blooded Veela, of course. Mais certainement, I am seen and they say my allure is felt et voila! I am enticing and bewitching the men, even if I am fully under control and doing no such thing.”

“And how’s that similar to me?” Nymphadora asked. She tilted her head, her face and body switching into her preferred form as she focused her attention on Fleur.

“You can become whomever you wish, non?” Fleur replied and moved into the room.

“Any woman,” Nymphadora corrected.

Fleur laughed, a tinkling sound that echoed in the room. “I am not a simple British wizard, mademoiselle, who does not concern himself with rare talents such as this. I researched metamorphs such as yourself at Beauxbatons. It is difficult, oui, and takes much practice, but you have the ability to switch your gender, if only for a little bit.”

Her companion flushed and looked equal parts angry and frightened. Fleur reached out with her hand and gently touched her. “I will not tell,” she avered. “You do not wish others to know the full extent of your talents. I will not breech your privacy -- I can understand why.”

“Thank you,” Nymphadora said and ducked her head. She peered up through her eyelashes, her hair lengthening and turning a strawberry blonde. A small fringe almost covered her turquoise blue eyes. She shrank in size, the already overly large robes looking nothing more than comical now, with her figure swamped wholly by them.

Her hand lingered as she moved away from her, a brilliant smile on her face. “I will leave you to your practice,” she said as she left the room.

If Nymphadora had a response, it remained unheard.

***

Fleur did not consider herself a snob or an elitist.

Both were used to describe her by the Order members with whom she interacted on a daily basis, usually -- but not always -- outside of her hearing.

The main problem was that she did not consider Headmaster Dumbledore infallible. She admired him and acknowledged his academic brilliance, magical power and past heroics. She did not, however, believe that only he knew the proper means of waging a war against Voldemort and his followers.

Sadly, she could not convince anyone else of this and her suggestions were often met with silence.

“It is ridiculous!” she muttered to herself and paced in the library. “He does nothing while the Minister and the papers blacken poor Harry’s name.” She shook her head and bit her lip in thought. She wanted to help the younger wizard. He did not deserve the recrimination in the papers -- nor did Cedric deserve to have his name so besmirched.

“He doesn’t want to act too soon,” Nymphadora said. This time, it was she who leaned against the door jamb and watched as Fleur ranted and paced. “We’re trying to gather allies first.”

Fleur snorted and shook her head. “Do not wait much longer or it will be too late. The Headmaster... he plays a game but it is not politics!” She gestured with her hand towards the general direction of the Ministry. “This is not chess. If he is not careful...” She trailed off unsure how to put into English how very disappointed she had become with the lack of action taken by the Order. Observing Harry from afar seemed the whole sum of their efforts -- and even that seemed to do little as no one was permitted to speak with the teen or protect him from his family.

Nymphadora wrinkled her nose and entered the room. She looked behind her and closed the door. Fleur ignored how her pulse quickened at that because she somehow doubted the other woman wanted some ‘alone’ time with her. She resolutely pushed down the infinitesimal crush she had on her companion and waited to see how she would defend the Order and Dumbledore.

“Fleur... I know it must seem frustrating for you but... the Headmaster, he knows what he’s doing,” Nymphadora said. “The Ministry is full of _his_ supporters and they have Fudge’s ear at the moment. He can’t move too quickly or the Order really will be the only thing standing between _his_ victory or defeat.”

“And until then he’ll let the papers crucify Harry and him?” Fleur asked, her arms stiff at her side with anger.

Nymphadora shrugged but had no other answer for her.

***

Watching Nymphadora change her form brought Fleur a pleasure she couldn’t quite define or explain. Metamorphmagi were rare, so she had never before met one. Nymphadora made it seem effortless, shifting her features individually or all at once, fast or so slowly that she could literally see each painstaking step the other woman took.

The teens and some of the Order members laughed at her talents, seeing it as great fun. Fleur though... she thought she could sometimes detect a hint of something in Nymphadora’s eyes that belied the general aura of amusement that surrounded her. It intrigued her, drew her to the British witch like the proverbial moth to the flame.

It confused her since never before had she felt such an attraction to a member of her own sex. Indeed, she had opted to remain in Britain after the Triwizard tournament because her eye had caught that of the eldest Weasley brother. And yet, she’d rather spend her free time with the ever-changing Nymphadora Tonks than him.

She didn’t understand.

***

“Will you help me?” Nymphadora asked late one night. She had slipped into Fleur’s room with barely a sound, nearly frightening the French witch with her sudden appearance.

“You have but to ask,” Fleur said and tightened the belt around her dressing gown, motioning her friend to join her on the bed. She curled her legs behind her and tried to look attentive rather than flirtatious.

Nymphadora plopped down with her trademark awkwardness on the bed, her shoulders hunched, her hair a mousy brown, and in general, looked meek.

It was not a look Fleur appreciated.

“I... you said you’ve studied metamorphs,” Nymphadora finally said. She wouldn’t meet Fleur’s eyes, so she stopped trying to catch them.

“Oui. There are several treatises on the topic at Beauxbatons,” Fleur said, keeping her voice even and bare of emotion. “I have read several of them.”

“So you know I could... change my form to a... male one?” she asked, nearly whispering.

Fleur leaned closer to her and nodded. “Oui.”

Nymphadora blew out a breath of air and looked away, staring at the hideous landscape that graced the wall. “My mum said the last war was pretty terrible. She said her sister will want me dead, for daring to have the Black hereditary gift when I’m a half-blood.”

She waited patiently for her to reach her point, for surely the other woman had one.

“Moody says we should all have a means of ready escape. He suggested polyjuice and a separate Muggle account in case we have to leave the Wizarding world quickly.”

“Polyjuice has limited utility,” Fleur pointed out.

“I know, which is why I’ve been practicing different forms to turn quickly into,” she explained. “But...” she hesitated for a moment, biting her lip with nervousness, her hair cycling through different colors. “If they come after me, they’re going to expect a woman. If I’m a... if I’m a _man_ though...”

Fleur inclined her head with understanding. “You need to practice, non? And you do not wish others to learn of this ability?”

“Yeah,” Nymphadora breathed out, looking relieved that she didn’t have to explain anything more to Fleur than she already had. “I mean, I could hole up in my apartment to work on it, but if I lock it tight, the Order and my parents might think something bad has happened and try to break in.”

“I understand,” Fleur assured her. “I am happy to help.”

Nymphadora finally met her gaze and something passed between them, a frisson of emotion that made her heart beat faster and caused her to cock her head in contemplation. “Maybe tomorrow?” she suggested and Fleur could do nothing else but nod in agreement.

***

There was something strangely intimate about watching Nymphadora shift her body into different shapes. Fleur liberated and hung on the wall a mirror for her friend to use while she practiced, something for which she seemed thankful.

She didn’t want to openly stare at her whilst she practiced so took to looking at the other woman covertly, sneaking a glimpse here and there whilst pretending to read a curse-breaking book Bill had lent her.

Nymphadora, for her part, seemed quite reluctant to actually shift into a male form. Fleur worried that she felt her interested eyes on her so resolutely kept her attention on her book, hoping that would soothe her enough to allow her the practice. Voldemort and his Death Eaters had only gone on a few raids since his resurrection but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t start targeting members of the Order. She did not want to be the cause of her capture.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Nymphadora huffed. Fleur looked towards her and tilted her head.

“Why not?” she asked.

“This...” she sighed and gestured with her hands around her body. “It’s... I can’t _do_ this!”

Fleur rose from the bed, carefully bookmarking her page and placing the book on the nightstand. She moved to stand behind her, looking at their reflection in the mirror. “It is no different than when you change your hair color or body shape,” she said. “How do you become another woman?”

She wrinkled her nose and for a moment it looked almost like the beginning of a pig’s snout, a reminder of the parlor trick she used to entertain the Weasleys earlier in the evening. “What do you mean?”

She would sigh except it would scare away Nymphadora and that was the last thing she wanted. “The different forms you take, how do you choose them and make them yours?”

A frown flitted across her face and then dawned understanding. Fleur met Nymphadora’s eyes in the mirror and smiled with satisfaction. “It is the same, oui? Just... concentrate on one step at a time.” She stepped back, retreated to give her the illusion of space while maintaining her support.

“Right,” Nymphadora said and gave a small, imperceptible nod. Fleur felt the shift of her weight as she shoved her shoulders back and braced herself to try again.

***

“I figured it out!” Nymphadora said, bouncing into the room with a restless energy that kept her from standing still. She paced around the room, looking at and fiddling with the knickknacks strewn around the room. She took a deep breath before facing Fleur and shifted.

Fleur tilted her head, watched with avid, greedy eyes as her features shimmered and changed before her eyes. Short brown hair that lay close to the skull. Hazel eyes full of conflicted emotions, as if she still questioned the rightness in all of this. Thinner lips under a hawkish nose. A broader face with stubble along the chin. A little more height and a runner’s build. Nondescript because if Nymphadora had to go on the run, she really shouldn’t stand out.

“What do you think?” she asked. She looked tense, as if Fleur’s opinion mattered more than anything else.

Circling around her new form, Fleur took in everything.

She made a handsome man, at least what she could see of her. A prurient curiosity made her wonder whether Nymphadora had changed every aspect of her body into the equivalent of a man. She flushed at her thoughts, berating herself for such uncouth wonder. “C’est très bon,” she said.

“Really?” Nymphadora asked and her eyes lit up with relief. “I wasn’t sure but...” she shrugged, reddening a little with what Fleur assumed was embarrassment even as she shifted her eyes away from hers, “it’s not like I can ask anyone else.”

Fleur reached out and grasped Nymphadora’s hand in hers. Even here she had changed, with thicker fingers that held the blush of callouses. Not as calloused as Bill’s but still somehow more masculine. “You look fine,” she reiterated. “It is a good disguise.”

“Yeah?” she asked and blew out a breath of pent up air. She didn’t release Fleur’s hand, instead capturing it and holding onto it. Fleur wondered if she even knew what she did; a part of her hoped so even as she felt the gentle stirs of arousal light up in her belly.

Nymphadora Tonks made her wet regardless of how she looked. There was an aura around her that called to her in a way that not even Bill could. She wondered what it would be like to kiss her in this form, whether the stubble would scrape against her skin as Bill’s had the three times they had kissed. What it would feel like to press her breasts against the now-flat chest of Nymphadora, whether she would feel her arousal swelling heavily against her hip if she moved just so.

She didn’t move. Couldn’t because Nymphadora liked Remus and not Fleur and she had Bill in a way even if he hadn’t done more than steal a few kisses from her in the shadows of this house.

Except... Nymphadora pulled her closer to her and Fleur went along with it because she had watched as she had tried and tried to figure out how to change her body into that of a man and had listened to her as she insisted that Dumbledore knew what he was doing even as poor Harry was stuck in that miserable house, all alone and screaming with nightmares and the papers decried him as a liar, and and...

Fleur didn’t have the willpower to pull away.

“I’ve seen you watching me,” Nymphadora said and her eyes were lit with something that caused her to squirm with anticipation. “You like what I can do.”

“I told you,” Fleur said and if her voice was breathless, she strove to ignore it, “I think you have a gift.”

“Hmmm...” she said and gently pulled her closer until Fleur felt the flat planes of a man’s chest against her soft breasts and she shuddered at the feel because even if she looked like a man, this was _Nymphadora_ and that made all the difference.

“Can I kiss you?” she asked and Fleur nodded her head, scarcely able to believe that she wanted this too, that she wanted her as much as she did.

Or at least she hoped so.

Nymphadora bent her head and brushed her lips against hers once, twice. Tentative and then with growing confidence. Firm lips that pressed for entrance into her mouth and then a tongue that traced each and every bit of it. She tasted of apples, sharp and tart.

They pressed closer to each other and Fleur wound her arms around Nymphadora, deepening the kiss but letting her control it, somehow sensing that was what she needed. It felt utterly amazing, little zings of attraction arching up and down her spine, her skin growing sensitive with arousal -- and all of that from a simple kiss!

The kiss broke and they leaned their foreheads together, breathing in each other’s breath. “Mon Dieu,” she whispered.

“That’s good, right?” Nymphadora asked with a slight laugh in her voice.

“Oui,” Fleur said and met her gaze with solemn eyes. “Très bon.”

“You know what would feel better?” Nymphadora asked but it was rhetorical since she moved her hands down Fleur’s back, pushing her closer so that their lower bodies aligned and yes, she could feel the proof that yes, Nymphadora had wholly changed her female body into a male one.

“This will be good,” Nymphadora muttered, pressing kisses against Fleur’s skin, tracing a path with her tongue. Fleur shivered at the contrasting feel of wet tongue and scratchy stubble. It felt odd, to kiss Nymphadora while she wore a man’s face.

A part of her wondered why the other woman had not acted before this but she ruthlessly tamped down on such emotions and concentrated on this, this moment, this experience.

Nymphadora cursed roundly, pulling back, anger on her face warring with disappointment and Fleur looked at her with surprised eyes and then dawning understanding.

Where her chest had been flat, breasts now pushed against the fabric, curves appeared, her face lost the stubble and her shoulders narrowed into a decidedly more feminine form.

“Merlin’s balls!” she said and shook her head. “Why won’t it work?”

Fleur reached out with a hand to touch her, flinched as Nymphadora pulled back angrily. “What is wrong?”

“Me! I’m what’s wrong. I can’t do this!” she said and it sounded loud in her ears and Fleur felt the first flush of shame rise in her cheeks.

“But...” and before she could protest, she was left alone in the room, wondering what had happened and why she had fled.

Why she had left her alone.

***

Bill seemed to have noticed Fleur’s subdued mood and had seemingly decided it was because he hadn’t had the time to spend with her. She wanted nothing more than to push him away, to demand that Nymphadora sit with her, come with her and tell her what had so angered her.

Nymphadora did not seem to care about the afternoon’s activities. She sat next to Remus, leaning close to him and flirting outrageously.

It made her feel sick so she steeled her heart and forced herself to pay attention to Bill and pretend that everything was alright.

She wished she had never decided to move to England.

***

Four nights later, Nymphadora slipped inside her room, not bothering to knock. Fleur looked at her, wondering why she had come. Tightened the tie of her dressing gown in an attempt at modesty.

“I’m sorry,” Nymphadora said and she sat on the edge of the bed, tracing patterns into the cover. “I...” She looked away and suddenly, Fleur didn’t want to hear the excuses that would inevitable emerge from her mouth.

“What are you sorry for?” Fleur asked and her tone was sharp, the anger she held coming forth. “For asking my help? For kissing me? For ignoring me?”

She flushed and had the grace to appear remorseful. “All of it?” she whispered at long last and Fleur barked out an unhappy laugh.

“Mais oui. Of course you are sorry,” she said and shook her head with disgust.

“I... I don’t know why...” Nymphadora stumbled over her words but tried to continue. “I like Remus and you, you have Bill and...”

“I like you,” Fleur interrupted and the confession seemed to have stunned her because she stopped with her mouth gaping open in an unattractive manner.

“But...”

Fleur did not act in a reckless manner often. She liked to plan ahead, to consider the consequences of each and every decision she made. She had moved to England despite the resurrection of Voldemort because she felt she had owed it to Cedric to stand against the Dark Lord. That Gringotts had also accepted her into their apprenticeship program had only aided her decision. Her attraction to Bill had only served as a mild incentive to the move and considering how rarely she saw him and how he had yet to invite her out on a proper date, she was certainly happy she had not made the move for the possibility of a relationship with Bill.

Which was why her next action surprised her as much as it did Nymphadora.

She lunged across the open space between them and kissed her. She put all of her frustration and anger and hurt and lust -- all of it -- into it, pulling her close to her.

Nymphadora remained passive for a moment and Fleur despaired, wondering why she had even tried until --

Tentative lips opened beneath her, a tongue cautiously stroked against hers, inviting her inside for a deeper taste. A hand rose unsteadily to clasp Fleur’s shoulder, fingers clenching, seeking something...

It felt glorious.

Where she got the strength to pull back, Fleur didn’t know but she did. Ignored the whimper Nymphadora made and waited. Waited to see what the other woman would do.

She wanted her, Merlin did she want her. But Nymphadora had already pulled back once and she wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- press for more than the kiss she had just stolen. Not when Nymphadora had ignored her for four days, had pretended she hadn’t pulled Fleur into her arms and kissed her. Had pretended that she hadn’t started something with her only to push her away when everything had gone wrong.

Not when she didn’t know what Nymphadora wanted.

She panted. Waited with bated breath to see what would happen. Steeled herself for disappointment.

Nymphadora raised a trembling hand to her lips, her eyes wide with shock and lust and denial. “I...”

Fleur merely gazed back at her mutely. Not wanting to influence her one way or the other.

Time seemed to slow.

And then...

Nymphadora lurched forward, landing a sloppy kiss on Fleur’s lips and all she could think was thank Merlin!

***

Fleur wasn’t used to waking up with a person next to her. A part of her was surprised Nymphadora hadn’t left in the middle of the night. She was happy she hadn’t. She nuzzled against the nape of her neck, breathing in her scent.

“Wha--?” Nymphadora mumbled, shifting in her arms.

“Good morning,” Fleur said.

“Oh... hi,” she said and turned to face her. To Fleur’s surprise, she leaned up enough to press a chaste kiss to her lips. “What time is it?”

Fleur reached over to the bedside table and picked up her wand. A quick flick and a softly muttered _tempus_ told them it was almost nine.

“Merlin’s balls! I’m going to be late!” Nymphadora yelped and scrambled out of bed. Fleur watched with a bemused gaze as she threw on her clothes and cast a series of sanitary spells before leaning close and pressing a kiss to her lips.

“See you later,” Nymphadora said and there was a hint of worry in her tone, as if she feared Fleur wouldn’t want to see her again.

“Oui,” Fleur nodded firmly and smiled.

“Good,” Nymphadora said and her hair switched to a vibrant pink as she tripped out of the room.

It was going to be a good day... Fleur could feel it.

 _/fin_


End file.
